It’s become increasingly common to read a news headline and then be left feeling—or hoping—that it’s just a sick joke, and society hasn’t actually stooped so low. With the growing disposability of human workers, a continuously suffering environment, and the rising relevance of a certain space-obsessed billionaire, we’ve almost already landed onto the comically twisted world of Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17.
The film follows Mickey (Robert Pattinson), who works as an Expendable (essentially, a recyclable human), doing all the dirty work needed to answer scientific curiosities—he breathes in fatal viruses, flops onto the sides of spaceships without oxygen, and when the day is over, gladly falls into a fiery inferno, ready to be regenerated. But when Mickey #18 is printed out before Mickey #17 ever fully dies, the two clones are left battling over which one of them is the Mickey. Backed by two all-time best performances by Pattinson, Bong crafts an entertaining, worthwhile critique of humanity’s greed for profit.
The best aspect of the film, and a common trait of Bong’s other works, is how it maintains its satirical tone without sacrificing the authenticity or sincerity of its characters. Mickey’s circumstances are bizarre, yet he’s humanized in a way that makes you care for him much more than what most other sci-fi films manage to achieve for their leads. An example of this is Bong’s own 2013 film Snowpiercer, where Chris Evans’ character was more of a tool for exposition and plot development than he was an actual person. Bong learns from his own mistakes, and instead creates a fully-fleshed, rounded out character in Mickey.
A key element that helps ground the absurdity of the premise is Mickey’s relationship with his girlfriend, Nasha (Naomi Ackie). She’s a consistent variable across all 18 of his lives, and the romantic subplot adds a new dimension to Bong’s typical antagonist-focused themes. This story of genuine, loyal love introduces an optimistic remedy to the capitalist horrors Bong typically only warns against.
Still, what really helps sell Mickey 17 is Pattinson’s performances as both the innocent Mickey #17 and the unruly Mickey #18. Both are wildly different people, but he manages to avoid exaggerating them into unconvincing caricatures, and instead differentiates them with precision—they have slightly different voices, slightly different postures, but still clearly convey very different attitudes.
On the other hand, the portrayals of capitalist-overlord-lovebirds Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and Ylfa (Toni Collette) have no subtlety. They’re cartoonish, and often lead to funny bits, but towards the last act of the film, grow tiring and repetitive. Ruffalo’s performance isn’t intended to reference just one person, but with the red caps and obsession with space-colonization, it feels like the finger is pointed in a very specific, rightward direction.
The film was meant to be an early 2024 release, but didn’t hit the theaters until over a year later in March 2025. It had a tumultuous, elongated post-production phase, with rumored disputes between Bong and Warner Bros. over details of the final cut. No specific details have officially been released, but having seen the film, it feels like certain parts were likely pulled out while others were simplified down to a more accessible, moderate message.
For instance, two of the characters who help save the day quickly become very important to the plot with barely any introduction or explanation. We spend almost no time with them before they become crucial elements of the final act, and it feels like something that might’ve been handled better in one of the several different cuts of Mickey 17.
Along the same lines, the ending of the film spends a long time reiterating its point, at a level that feels a bit more obvious and tedious than Bong’s usual work, but could be argued is on-par with his other English-language films, like Okja or the aforementioned Snowpiercer.
Despite these minor grievances, Mickey 17 still manages to shape its own identity and serves as an exciting new addition to the world of sci-fi and black comedies. It may not be the best of Bong Joon-Ho, but it’s still good fun.
